Doctors find feather in 7-month-old Kansas girl's neck

Hutchinson, Kansas (CBS News) -- Mya Whittington's parents panicked when they saw a lump growing on their almost 7-month-old child's neck -- and were shocked when a doctor removed a 2-inch feather from the spot.

Mya's mother, Emma Whittington, rushed her daughter to the emergency room on Saturday Dec. 8 when she noticed a golf ball-sized lump near her daughter's jaw. Doctors thought it was a swollen gland and sent her home. However, the next day, Emma and Aaron noticed a protrusion sticking out from the lump and went back to the hospital.

The worried parents were sent to a bigger hospital Wichita. Two days later, the problem became clear: The end of a feather began to stick out of the child's neck. A doctor pulled it out.

Aaron told KWCH that doctors believe she put the feather in her mouth, and it proceeded to get stuck in her throat. Her body then tried to eject the foreign body through her neck.

"It just started to reject it and forced it out," Aaron explained.

Doctors said that the whole process would have taken months, meaning the feather was there for quite some time. They also speculated that she must have been in a lot of pain. However, her parents said she never cried except for when the nurses were poking at her and the girl seemed fine until the lump appeared.

Mya's back to being a happy baby, her relieved parents said. They told theHutchinson News that they saw a specialist on Wednesday to drain the remnants of the swollen area, but he said it had healed nicely and decided to leave it alone.

"Babies put stuff in their mouth, and we got it out," Emma said to KWCH laughing.